I was watching a women’s gymnastics competition on TV the
other day and was awed by the pretzel-like positions into which they managed to
contort their lithe little bodies.
Unfortunately, the longer I watched the competition, the more I was
reminded of every gym class I was forced to endure back at good old West High.
I can’t even begin to put into words how much I dreaded
those mandatory gym classes in high school.
For one thing, we had to wear regulation gym suits that would have made
even Cher look like Jackie Gleason. The
suits were solid blue, all one piece, with bloomer-type shorts attached, and
snaps all the way down the front. All
of my classmates’ suits were so baggy, they could have fit two people in them,
but mine was so snug, every time I exhaled, all the snaps popped open. It’s no wonder my nickname soon became “The Flasher.”
To make matters worse, there wasn’t anything I was able to
do even remotely well in gym class. I nearly gave myself a migraine trying to
learn how to do a headstand. I never
understood why it was so important to our gym teacher for us to learn how to do
headstands anyway. I mean, if humans were meant to stand on their heads, they
would have been born with wide, flat skulls (and in my case, a less heavy bottom). Fear also prevented me from doing a
headstand. The thought of my neck
crushing like an accordion beneath all of my weight absolutely terrified me.
Rope climbing also was something I never mastered. There were two thick ropes hanging from the
ceiling in the gym. One of them was smooth, for the boys, and the other one had
big knots all the way up, for the girls. The knots were supposed to give us
something to grasp so we could climb the rope more easily.
Oh sure, as if some puny knots were going to help me hoist
my chunky body up anything! I struggled for weeks to make it past even the
second knot.
I didn’t do any better on the physical fitness tests. On one test, we received points for the
number of push-ups, sit-ups and chin-ups we could do. It didn’t take long for
me to realize that trying to do any exercise with an “up” in it was next to
impossible for someone who had trouble just getting “up” out of bed every
morning. For this reason, I earned a consistent “D” in gym class.
I did, however, excel at one thing in gym class…falling. I
fell off the balance beam. I fell off the monkey bars. I fell off the dumb rope
with the knots in it.
To this day, I still believe our gym-suit bloomers are what
kept us girls from getting severely injured in gym class. We could have jumped off the roof wearing
those things and they’d have puffed up with air and gently floated us to the
ground. Except for mine, that is. My
snaps would have burst open, the air would have escaped, and I would have
plummeted to my death.
At least I wouldn’t have had to suffer through any more gym
classes.
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